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Ohio State Men's Tennis (2014/2019/2024 ITA Indoor National Champs, 17 Straight B1G Titles)

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Ohio State junior Blaz Rola won the NCAA men?s tennis singles championship today with a 7-6, 6-4 victory over Virginia?s Jarmere Jenkins today in Urbana, Ill.

Rola had six set points in the first-set tiebreaker ? and saved two against him ? before Jenkins double-faulted to give Rola a 10-8 win. In the second set, Rola broke Jenkins? serve to take a 4-3 lead and then held serve the rest of the way.
Rola, a native of Slovenia, is the first Ohio State player to win an NCAA singles title. He won the NCAA doubles championship last year with Chase Buchanan.

?If you look at the champions that have won this tournament, from John McEnroe to the Bryan brothers, for my name to be up there, it?s unbelievable,? Rola said. Bob Bryan, the 1998 champion, and twin brother Mike are the top doubles team in the world.
Rola entered the tournament ranked 12th in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association polls. Jenkins was seeded third.
But Rola cruised through most of his six matches in the tournament. He dropped only one set, which came in the quarterfinals when he won 4-6, 6-4, 6-1 over No. 8 seed Henrique Cunha of Duke.

Rola said that winning the long tiebreaker today, especially in the warm, windy conditions, gave him a huge edge.
?I managed to stay relax and stay focused on the points he had set points,? he said. ?After winning that first set, it got a little easier for me and tougher on him.?

Rola won match point on a disputed ace. Jenkins saved a match point to make it 40-30. Rola then hit a wide serve beyond Jenkins? reach that the line judge ruled to be in. Jenkins thought the ball was out, and Rola said the ball mark appeared to have confirmed that. But the ruling stood.
?I think they made a mistake on that call,? Rola said. ?There was nothing we could do.
?I felt sorry for him that it didn?t end the way it should end. It didn?t end the way I wanted it to. But it?s one of those things you can?t control. Luckily, this time it went my way.?
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http://buckeyextra.dispatch.com/content/stories/2013/05/27/ohio-states-rola-wins-ncaa-tennis-singles-title.html"]http://buckeyextra.dispatch.com/content/stories/2013/05/27/ohio-states-rola-wins-ncaa-tennis-singles-title.html[/URL]
 
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Splash at OSU official site.

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MililaniBuckeye;2341264; said:
Updated the thread title with that achievement...
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Figured that since I included the single national title in the thread title, I should also include last year's doubles title. There's a limit to the thread title length, so I had to make some minor tweaking...
 
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I wonder who paid for the robot vacuum:paranoid:
As a tennis player in the small, central European country of Slovenia, Blaz Rola had never heard of Ohio State and didn’t really care to hear about American college tennis.

So it shouldn’t be surprising that the junior’s path to the NCAA men’s singles championship he won on Monday was unconventional. It included healthy doses of persistence by coach Ty Tucker, hard work by Rola and even an iRobot Roomba vacuum cleaner. Yes, really.

Tucker discovered Rola while recruiting in Germany several years ago. He was trying to sign Dino Marcan, a Croatian who stayed at Ohio State for only one year before turning pro. Tucker noticed how hard Rola practiced before his matches and liked his 6-foot-4 frame and potential as a left-hander.

Tucker got Rola’s phone number and email address, but his numerous entreaties went unanswered.

“A couple months went by without being able to talk,” Tucker said.

It wasn’t by accident. Rola wanted to play professionally. He wasn’t looking to play American college tennis, which is considered a dead end by many in European tennis. But he finally decided to call Tucker, who asked him to come to Columbus on a recruiting visit. Tucker promised Rola that if he didn’t like OSU, he would stop contacting him.

“I thought, ‘Why not? It’s not going to hurt me to take a visit,’ ” Rola said. “Ty was the only one who stuck with me and tried to convince me that college was a good choice.”

Rola came to visit with his mother, Majda, who had to pay for her airfare. While Rola was learning about Ohio State and the tennis program, and becoming quickly convinced that he should enroll, his mom was on a different mission.

“All she wanted on the trip was to somehow get the Roomba vacuum,” Tucker said, referring to the small, round robotic device that can be programmed to vacuum a room and then return to its docking station.

“I think we were going out to lunch on High Street and there happened to be a vacuum shop and we pulled in and they had one Roomba. That made the mom like me. From there, they loved the visit.”
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http://buckeyextra.dispatch.com/content/stories/2013/05/29/ohio-state-not-rolas-first-choice.html
 
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It's crazy how recruiting can work out sometimes, take a chance on a kid you didn't even come to scout and he turns into the NCAA Singles Champion....what a testament to Ty's scouting prowess as well.

That being said, I could totally understand if Blaz decided to turn pro but either way I can't wait to follow his progress.
 
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For those who are interested in continuing to follow the Buckeyes in the off-season, I have enjoyed tracking the progress of the guys on the Future and Challenger tours this summer.

http://www.atpworldtour.com/tournaments/challenger-tour.aspx

There are tournaments pretty much every week with Buckeyes in them. This week Rola is playing a Challenger in Finland and has won his first two rounds of singles. He's having a pretty good summer, and it'll be interesting to see if he decides to come back to OSU next fall or not.

Recent graduate Devin McCarthy is playing in a Future in Illinois and has won his first two singles matches and has advanced to the finals of the doubles where he'll face fellow Buckeye Peter Kobelt.

Anyway, in case others weren't aware of the link above, I wanted to pass it along so you can check out the results.

Go Bucks!
 
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Buckeye Peter Kobelt is the single's champion of the Midwest regional tournament which finished today.
Next up Bucks try to sweep the competition as Kobelt and Kevin Metka have advanced to the double's final.
All regional winners receive an automatic invite to the ITA Indoor Intercollegiate Tournament in NYC.
 
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